Berlusconi in court in Mills case

Silvio Berlusconi accuses prosecutors of a vendetta against him

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has appeared in court on charges he bribed a witness to perjure himself in another trial.

It is the first time he has appeared in court over allegations he paid his former British lawyer David Mills to provide false testimony.

Mr Berlusconi faces two other corruption trials and is also accused in another case of paying an underage prostitute and of abuse of power.

In all cases he says he is innocent.

Mr Berlusconi says prosecutors in Milan are pursuing a vendetta against him.

The prime minister is alleged to have paid Mills $600,000 (£367,000) to lie under oath in two corruption trials in the 1990s. Mills himself was convicted of perjury in 2009 but the case expired under a statute of limitations and he was never jailed.

Mills is the estranged husband of former UK cabinet minister Tessa Jowell.

Mr Berlusconi has appeared in court several times in recent months.

In January, Italy’s Constitutional Court swept away part of a law passed in 2010 which granted 18 months of immunity to Mr Berlusconi and some of his senior ministers.

Several trials against Mr Berlusconi that had been suspended were allowed to resume, including the Mills case.

In what is known as the Mediaset case, the prime minister and other executives of his Mediaset business group are accused of buying US movie rights at inflated prices via offshore companies under his control in order to reduce Mediaset’s tax liabilities.

In a separate case known as Mediatrade, prosecutors allege fraud over inflated prices for TV rights. One of the defendants is the prime minister’s son, Pier Silvio Berlusconi, Mediaset’s deputy chairman.

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.